Breakfast in Georgia

[Chuck Stromme]

I dine in an old restaurant with close Georgian friends in the early morning hours. Georgians (the Tbilisi Georgians, not the Atlantans) love khashi, with a hoof in every bowl. It’s a soup for cold-weather early morning gatherings. No one eats it during the warm months.

Boil up squares of tripe, put in a touch of milk, add the hooves, simmer until tender. They’re really ankle bones with the cartilage and some other things attached, not hooves, but why quibble over words?

Our waitress hands me a large bowl of the steaming bland, opaque soup with an ankle bone sticking up in the center, an odd bony island, pieces of tripe bumping its shore. I reach for the chopped garlic and take salt from a communal bowl, adding them to taste. Day-old flat bread is a must. 100 grams of vodka is traditional, or beer, no matter how early. I prefer the local sparkling water.

There’s a different early-morning khashi crowd that I didn’t see a few years ago. They arrive from the new casinos. Waiters and dealers and security guards, beautiful hostesses and hookers, the low-level underworld. Twenty-somethings in used BMWs gather with their marks and johns and with ordinary citizens and with ancient Soviet pensioners, and with me. We eat our khashi and no one bothers anyone. Polite as lords, we are. We’re all there for the same things: the soup and the shared tradition.

Many of the twenty-somethings came into Tbilisi from outlying villages. Some are refugees; all were thrilled to find work. Khashi is a taste from home, something their moms made every week in season, an affinity all Georgians share. Someone was always butchering in the village. Tripe is cheap and the butcher might throw in some bones for free.

They remember what life was like at home, before whatever it was that brought them here, maybe before the Russians came. They weren’t guards then, or waiters or hookers. They were just kids and they grew up too fast.

They laugh too loud, as if to ward off reality, and they drink and smoke and eat khashi. A few stare out the big window, watching the dawn, missing their families. So much has changed for them. They’ll visit their villages again one of these days but how will they ever answer all the questions? The prettiest girl is crying.

[LC-Hawk]

Edythe was crying? :-)

I gotta tell you....I haven't eaten breakfast yet...and I think I'll pass on it today

sorry....but this must be an acquired taste!

If I were editing this story for publication I might move the last three paragraphs to the top and follow with the recipe....just a suggestion...because you almost lost me with the recipe

[Chuck Stromme]

It's an unusual soup, but not quite unique to Georgia. I saw, but ever tried, a version in Macedonia. I should have tried it there but I was too put off. Never again.

Yes, it's an acquired taste for foreigners but it's not nearly as bad as it sounds. It's actually quite tasty, once you get used to the idea. Sometimes it's a test of character, too. No one admits it, of course, but when you're served your first-ever bowl everybody watches your reaction. I don't order it every time we eat an early morning meal but I always order it the first time I do each visit. It reminds my friends and me who I am. There are other tasty soups to choose from, chikirtma (chicken) and kharcho (beef). Georgian cuisine is wonderful but it has its oddities like any other. Khashi is one of them, for westerners. For most (but not all) Georgians it is a treat that I'm happy to share.

Edythe was crying?>> No, she's pretty much given up hostessing and hooking these days. This was yesterday when six of us saw her off at the airport at 0530 -- she's home and safe now, I just got an email -- and we went for an early breakfast at a favorite restaurant. In fact, it was the first place I ever ate khashi, back in 2001. No casino crowd then. I've seen my darlin' wife eat khashi, once. She'll pass now but once she didn't. It was enough. She's a gamer.

Next time you visit, give me a couple of days to shop and I'll make you a batch and you can take home the leftovers.

As I once said, when I was a very-short-timer in another world,

"Five and a wake-up."

Chuck

[levan jakobia]

Yes, I have to admit, that morning Khashi was great, only one(small) correction, it is not the lamb gut, just cow hoof and not exactly gut(I don't know this word in English) this organ looks like a net, maybe someone knows? anyway it's good.........

[Chuck Stromme]

Very true, Levan. It really isn't gut, it's "tripe". Tripe is the stomach lining and yes, it does remind you of a net and it works like a net when the animal is alive. I used the word "gut" as an attention-getter but I clarified it as tripe in the second paragraph. Whatever it is, I enjoyed Saturday morning khashi with you and our friends after we took Edythe to the airport SO early. I have a real second family here and I enjoy khashi with you and the others whenever I come to Georgia.

For those of you who have read my story "Moments of Sanity", this is the same "Levan" who keeps driving into the conflict zone without security in order to build safe houses for Georgian IDP (internally displaced persons, refugees) children. I am proud to call him a friend.

[Edythe Stromme]

I loved this the first time I read it, but I think LC has a point about moving the last three (I might even say four) paragraphs to the top. That way it could end with "I chose the sparkling water". Still, the "lamb gut soup" is definitely an attention getter. Chuck gives me credit for eating it. If so, there must have been vodka involved or I've blocked out the experience. I'll choose the chikirtma every time. Edythe